In one aspect, the technology detailed below relates to arrangements that take action based on a watermark output and a derived identifier.
In another aspect, the technology relates to arrangements employing a digital watermark detector during a device's boot process.
In another aspect, the technology relates to arrangements employing Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) in conjunction with digital watermarks.
In another aspect, the technology relates to arrangements that take an action with audio or visual information, in accordance with information received in response to a digital watermark decoded from such audio or visual information.
In another aspect, the technology relates to arrangements involving repeated checking of audio or visual content for the presence of digital watermark information.
In another aspect, the technology relates to arrangements that store attribute data relating to digital watermark process of plural content objects.
In another aspect, the technology relates to arrangements for restoring metadata to content objects from which metadata has earlier been lost.
In another aspect, the technology relates to arrangements that modify content objects in accordance with identifiers derived therefrom.
In another aspect, the technology relates to arrangements that identify rendering control instructions by reference to an identifier derived from a content object.
In another aspect, the technology relates to controlling or restricting a content object in accordance with data obtained by reference to an identifier derived from the content object.
In another aspect, the technology relates to content searching arrangements.
In another aspect, the technology relates to arrangements involving delayed responses based on content objects. and
In another aspect, the technology relates to file browser systems employing file browser extensions.
Digital watermarking is a process for modifying physical or electronic media to embed a machine-readable code into the media. The media may be modified such that the embedded code is imperceptible or nearly imperceptible to the user, yet may be detected through an automated detection process. Most commonly, digital watermarking is applied to media signals such as images, audio signals, and video signals. However, it may also be applied to other types of media objects, including documents (e.g., through line, word or character shifting), software, multi-dimensional graphics models, and surface textures of objects.
Digital watermarking systems typically have two primary components: an encoder that embeds the watermark in a host media signal, and a decoder that detects and reads the embedded watermark from a signal suspected of containing a watermark (a suspect signal).
The encoder embeds a watermark by altering the host media signal. The reading component analyzes a suspect signal to detect whether a watermark is present. In applications where the watermark encodes information, the reader extracts this information from the detected watermark.
A great number of particular watermarking techniques are known. The reader is presumed to be familiar with the literature in this field. Particular techniques for embedding and detecting imperceptible watermarks in media signals are detailed in the present assignee's copending application Ser. No. 09/503,881. Other watermarking techniques are known from published patents to NEC (inventor Cox et al), IBM (inventors Morimoto and Braudaway et al), Dice (inventor Cooperman), Philips (inventors Kalker, Linnartz, Talstra, etc. Audio watermarking techniques are known from published patents to Aris (inventor Winograd, Metois, Wolosewicz, etc.), Solana (inventor Lee, Warren, etc.), Dice, AudioTrack, Philips, etc.
Further features of the technology will become apparent with reference to the following detailed description and accompanying drawings.